


Of Puppets and Puppeteers

by thenopetrain



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 07:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6507583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenopetrain/pseuds/thenopetrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Tom gets rid of Jolene after discovering she's targeted Liz, and ultimately, Red, events force the three into a tense and shaky alliance. AU from season 1 episode 15 onward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Started this on ff.net after speculating things with my family and figured, after finding my notes again, that I'd continue it on here as well. This is a what-if scenario, I own nothing of the show or its characters. Enjoy!

_**Apokálypsis** _ _(Greek);"lifting of the veil";is a term applied to the disclosure to certain privileged persons of something hidden from the majority of humankind._

* * *

They say everything happens in _threes._

Tom Keen disagrees.

He has lived a life of couples. Just do this for them a couple of times. Go on a couple of jobs. Kill a couple of people, it'll get easier. Get paid a couple of times. Get a couple of notches under his belt. Have a couple of kids. Tell your fake wife that you love her a couple of times and you might start to believe it. _Couples._

Two dead bodies.

Two undisclosed graves.

Two years.

Two more days.

Two pictures.

Two hours.

He will be home in two hours. The drive was tactical. It was methodical. It helped him make sense of the two pictures. _Liz, Red, and the string that connected them._ It's all he can see as he drives the winding back roads around DC. He has had a hell of a weekend. Discovered another assassin casing his job. Killed the assassin and the man she'd captured. Tried to take matters into his own hands. _A helluva weekend._

He had phoned Liz two days ago to tell her that he had canceled his flight and was driving home, and not to call if she was too busy. He had gotten her voicemail. She hasn't called back. Another tactical move. Make her feel guilty about her job, because he needed her to hate it. He also needed to think. Take action. Clean up his mess. Get a grip. _Forget._

Those two pictures had scared him. And he doesn't get _scared_. Nervous, maybe, but not scared. Jolene's operation was candid at best, and he wasn't thinking about all the surveillance. Her plan had been simple: he would kill Liz and she would do him the _favor_ of killing _Raymond Reddington_. What he had suspected of the man had been true. He may have been in deeper cover than he'd ever been in his life, but he knew a threat when he heard one. Jolene's plan was messy. She was smart, but brash, and for a guy who spent two years in a fake marriage without contact from _Them_ , quick was dangerous.

When he refused, things had escalated too quickly to rebuild the trust between them. Jolene ended up dead. He would have gotten more out of her if she hadn't tried to leave after threatening to kill Liz without him. Being mouthy often got one killed in this business. She should have known that. He would have gotten more out of the cowboy, too if he hadn't gotten loose. _Jolene was holding him because he'd been snooping around._ Too many questions revolved around Liz and Reddington. A famous criminal. A ruthless mastermind. Jolene hadn't dug deep enough to know the finer details of their connection, but Tom knew it was big enough to warrant some of the attention of the worst human beings on the planet.

And so much more than a piece of string connected that man to his Elizabeth.

 _Liz,_ he had two hours to go from Tom Bond, skilled assassin, to Tom Keen, devoted husband. Teacher. Family man. Honest and dedicated. _Understanding,_ his hands wrap around the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white. Never mind Jolene and the snooping cowboy. Never mind the favor he called in. Never mind any of it. Cling to the sorrow of not having a child. Forget about how docile he's been since the day he proposed to Liz and how vulnerable that makes him feel. Act like his real marriage is falling apart and that he's _devastated_. Forget about Raymond Reddington and the string and the fact that the favor failed and the man got away from _Them_ this afternoon. Jolene's enemies are not his enemies. He has a job to do.

_Forget._

* * *

Elizabeth Keen was _tired._

Tired of her job.

Tired of her marriage.

Tired of needing help or advice or protection.

Tired of being used.

After giving them the latest name on The Blacklist this afternoon, Red had ceased to exist. One moment he was in the Post Office, the next, he was in the wind. He wasn't answering her calls. He wasn't on his jet – they checked. And Dembe had dropped off the grid as well. Cooper had been furious. Liz sat on the urge to try and get a hold of Kaplan.

Ever since Tom had left for Florida, the men in her life had gotten weirder. Ressler was being more of a friend than she expected. Cooper was more pensive, more guarded, and seemed ready to have an army at his door like that day with Garrick. Red was…well he was _Red_ , until about six hours ago when he seemingly disappeared.

_Again._

She'd been dodging the feeling that something had happened to him since this afternoon, and the drive home was not helping. It pressed in on her from all sides; made her stomach burn with impatience and anxiety. _He's fine._ She tries to go back to how she felt after his accusations of Tom were proven false. _Go to hell._ But she couldn't do that anymore than she could feel confident in her husband. Something was wrong. Something was going on, it was keeping him and Dembe from contact, and she hated being in the dark. She hated feeling left out, and that was worse than being worried. If she went down this road any further, the lines she swore never to cross again would be far behind her.

"Maybe they already are," hearing it out loud makes her frown as she pulls up in front of her house. It's dark. It's empty. It's stressful. A small part of her wants to avoid this place, the other part wants to hide in its walls and lock the world out.

At this point, it's both a prison and a sanctuary.

Everything had been fine before this job. _Before Red, you mean._ But that was a tired argument within her these days. Red's involvement in her life only sped up the slow death of her marriage and personal life. _What if I told you everything you know about yourself is a lie?_ Sighing, she reaches into the passenger seat and grabs her jacket before exiting the car. Tom would be home some time tonight. His message still sat in her voicemail; a reluctant, regretful, and determined sign all at once. She knew she wasn't being fair to Tom. _I won't let this job come between us and our marriage._ So much for that. She barely jams the key into her door when it swings open on its own.

Her gun is out faster than she thought possible. She's getting good at this; flipping between citizen and agent without effort. After peering into the darkness of her home, ears straining for any kind of noise, she eases herself over the threshold and closes the door behind her. _Nothing_. She puts her back to the wall to her left and trains her gun on the entrance to the kitchen. The last time she came home to a silence like this one, her husband was beaten and bound to a chair by the man she had been chasing. She knew there was someone in her house. She knew the difference between quiet and _quiet_. One was a product of absence, the other a product of necessity. She reaches a hand to flip the switch on the wall, and light floods the hallway in front of her.

"Tom?" It's a hopeful question, almost like she's begging the eerie silence of her home to produce her husband from the shadows, unharmed and apologetic. He'll have an excuse as to why all the lights were off and why he left the door unlocked, and she'll do her best to believe him.

"A terrible guess." She swings her gun up and to the right to find Red slouched against the wall at the top of the stairs.

"Red," She doesn't mean to sound so relieved as she lowers her weapon. She's aware that the way she says his name has changed since the Anslo Garrick ordeal. It's still exasperated and defiant and sometimes impatient, yet it hides a modicum of the comfort that's present now.

It's a short lived sigh from her lips as she gets a better look at him. There's a gun in his hand, resting on his thigh. If it weren't for the sheen of sweat on his face and the labored rise and fall of his chest, it would appear he was simply lounging. Holstering her weapon, Liz jogs up the stairs and kneels on the landing beside him.

"What happened?" What was meant to be a question comes out sounding like, _tell me, now_. She peers around the front of his coat, finds a ragged hole, and gently peels the fabric back. She feels, rather than hears the gasp he elicits when she does, and tries to ignore the panic in the pit of her stomach. What she finds is a blood stained, three-piece charcoal suit, and her eyes dart to his own hooded stare.

"Where's Tom?" The normal gravel of his voice is pitched lower; a weaker version of the usual deflection. She watches him for a moment, studies the pain he hides in the lines on his face, the tension in his body, before she glances back down at his wound. She wonders if that is what the gun in his hand is for: in case Tom came home first. _In case the people that did this to him followed._ She didn't know which was more troubling.

"On his way back from Miami." The comment made her nervous, since he should be home sometime in the next few hours. Red couldn't stay here. "Where's Dembe?" After Luli's death, she had only seen Red without his body guard once: when he returned. The absence of the quiet, protective man is almost as alarming as the amount of blood Red seems to have lost. He's used most of his tie to staunch the bleeding in the front, and she doesn't waste time as she leans him forward to see the exit wound in the back. There's a small, dark stain on her wall, but at least there wasn't a bullet to fish out of him.

"He's fine," That's not what she asked, but she's used to that. He grunts as she settles him back against the wall. "When-" His voice hitches when she shifts his tie away to get a better look at what she's dealing with. It's only now that she realizes he's trembling. " _Tom._ When will he be back?" She leans back onto her heels and stares at Red's chest; the rising and falling, and rising and falling, a jarring and hypnotic rhythm as she debates on her course of action.

"Soon," She stands, catches the small nod he makes, and says, "Give me a sec." She practically leaps down the stairs and into the kitchen where she keeps a small medical kit under the sink. After Zamani broke in and almost killed Tom, they had agreed it was a smart precaution in case Liz brought her work home with her again. _He has no idea._ Red was her _job_ but the warmth gathering in her eyes as she knelt to grab the kit told her that he was becoming much more than that. The dread and the helplessness she'd felt when she saw the blood on the floor beside Garrick in that church, _Red's blood_ , was back; clawing at her insides and threatening to overwhelm her. By the time she gets back to his side, his eyes are closed, but they slide open again when she rips a package of gauze out.

"Red," she removes the tie, ignores the bloodied weight of it in her hand, and places the gauze over the wound immediately. She'll have to clean it, but she needs to move him somewhere and she needs to get the stain off the wall before Tom gets home. "I need to move you," He makes a small noise in acknowledgement and the sound of a car driving by outside makes her head whip in the direction of the door. Her heart is in her throat until the sound vanishes, and there's no echo of a car door slamming shut. A part of her still can't believe that her husband chose to drive back home. She looks back down to find Red staring at her with a light in his tired eyes. It wasn't safe for him to stay here. "And you need to tell me what's going on." _If you have any doubts about your husband…_

"Did you know your… _security_ _team_ rotates every…four hours?" It's weak and matter-of-fact behind the small smirk at the edge of his lips, and Liz debates between rolling her eyes and looking concerned. _He's unbelievable._ While his lips might smile, his eyes are wincing now, and she can't remember when she started cataloging the many subtleties of his face. She sighs, gathers the rest of the kit into her arms, and turns away from him. She couldn't hide him in her room. The bathroom was too small. The closet under the stairs was full. _The baby's room…_ As reluctant as she was to put the man who instigated all the insecurities she had about her marriage in the very room that would have held her remedy to the past, Liz quickly entered it and put the med kit by the door. When she exits, Red is attempting to get to his feet. "Hey!" Any thoughts of telling him to stop would be moot, so she darts to his side, and slides under his right shoulder to take the majority of his weight.

They're silent, except for the pained noise that Red makes when they careen too far to the left as they stumble down the hall towards the baby's room. _I have to stop calling it that,_ especially when she's planning on hiding Red there. The empty space seems to yawn before them. The combined polka-dot wallpaper and the pale, yellow paint they'd chosen are far too hopeful when she throws the light on and halts him in the doorway. _Closet or corner of the room,_ she could shut him away and out of sight in the tiny, wall closet next to the door. It would be cramped, but safe. She needed to make it look like he wasn't here.

"Closet," She motions to their left and he immediately lurches towards it. She opens the shuttered doors and tells him to duck when they enter it. It takes some maneuvering, but she finally gets him propped into one of the corners inside the little space. He doesn't look comfortable, and she really needs to get some layers off of him before she can lie him down. "We need to remove your coat and suit jacket," she says as she walks back over to the door and retrieves the med kit. "Unless you want me to cut them off?" He actually looks like he's entertaining the idea when she kneels back down beside him. After a moment, he leans forward, and Liz reaches out to steady him. He starts shirking his right arm out of his coat, and when it's out, she slides the rest of it off. She places it next to her, and his suit jacket comes next. Without the added layers, Liz is granted an uninhibited view of the damage. Her eyes widen at the sight of the blood on his vest and shirt. _Shit…_

"Calm down," His voice rumbles even when it's breathless, and she swallows.

"I'm calling Kaplan," It's the only way to save his life, right now. He needs a blood transfusion, fluids, an _actual_ doctor, or at least a person who knows more than the basics. Kaplan was his go-to, right? His hand on her wrist stops her, even though she's pretty sure she could shake him off with how feeble his grip is.

"No, _Lizzie,_ " His eyes are burning when she meets them. A little more focused. A little more urgent than he had been at the top of the stairs. This switch between placid and calm to alarmed, terrifies her. "Your husband-" His face scrunches up in pain, and for short time, he simply breathes. There's a sound that brings her heart into her throat from down stairs, and she holds her hand up for Red to be quiet. It's the sound of their car door slamming shut. She glances at the window behind her, nerves like fire ants in her stomach. _He's home. He's home._

"I'll keep him out of here, don't worry." _I can tell him that I'm harboring a key witness to a case I'm working, and that he is not allowed to enter this room for legal and security purposes._ It's a vague start to a plan she needs to finish making, but it will do for now. "Now, about Kaplan." Red shakes his head and starts to open his mouth, but she cuts him off. "Red, you need a blood transfusion, fluids, _actual_ help. I'm calling her." He finds it in him to stare at her and she challenges his gaze with a heated one of her own before reaching for her phone. "I can always call Ressler." All the fight goes out of him then. He leans his head back against the wall and sighs,

"The Willard InterContinental, ask for a drop-" He shifts a little, pulls his left arm tighter to his body. "Too risky for her to come here."

* * *

He's thirty minutes early when he parks across the street from their home. Just the sight of their car, the light on in the hall, and corner of the crib he can see through door, is enough to stir in him the actual longing for a child. When they discussed having kids, Liz had always been conflicted, despite what she said. He knew how important adopting was to her, the fears and insecurities motherhood caused her, and he had understood the reasons behind it. Liz had impressed him, charmed him, and endeared herself to him in the span of a ten minute conversation the week after he proposed. _She had been so excited…_ Even delirious and in pain, he had recognized the absolute joy in her the night she bounced through the kitchen, adoption papers in her hands, before she realized the state he was in. _So what happened?_

Job-wise, he had almost solidified his role in her life as the father of their adopted kid. Husband-wise, he could almost touch the dream they'd so desperately fantasized over. _Don't confuse the two._ The kid would have been leverage, nothing more. But who was he fooling? He didn't know when _They_ would contact him again, and fatherhood was so close. But it wasn't real. It would never be real.

_Because it's my job..._

He doesn't bother grabbing his luggage. It's late, and he's still a little antsy from the events of the past five days. All he wants is a hot shower, a snack, and to sleep in his own bed. _And forget about everything for a little while._ He'd apologize to Liz enough that she'd eventually apologize too, and he might get to hold her as they fall asleep. As he walks up the stairs to their door, he knows a part of him is in love with her. A good actor, a good spy, feels the things they are supposed to be and believes in them. Tom Bond finds it odd that the door is unlocked, but Tom Keen, devoted husband, doesn't worry about it as he locks it behind him, and peers around the house.

"Liz?" He's taking off his jacket when he thinks he catches her dart across the hall and into the bathroom up stairs. It strikes him that she came from what was going to be the baby's room, and a lump he doesn't want to acknowledge weighs in the back of his throat. Swallowing hard, Tom hangs his jacket up beside the door and veers towards the kitchen. "You hungry?" He needs a distraction, and he hasn't eaten since yesterday.

"I'm good, babe!" Her answer doesn't surprise him, but he mopes his way to the fridge anyway and surveys his options. Beer isn't entirely out of the question, and he wonders if the leftovers from Friday are still good. _Lasagna doesn't go bad that fast, right?_ He's about to ask Liz when she walks into the kitchen, and leans against the other side of the bar. He glances at her, reminds himself that she walks as quietly as a Prius drives, realizes she's still wearing her work clothes, and shuts the fridge door. By the look on her face, food is going to have to wait.

"Are you going in or just getting home?" Her eyes start to soften, and it looks like she's about to say she's sorry, so he jumps into the role he finds easiest in this domesticated version of himself: passive aggressive. "See? This is what I've been saying, Liz." He lowers his voice, like there are others to hear them argue, when really, he doesn't want to be accused of yelling at her, and starts to plead. "This job…it's too much." _Way too much._ He starts to walk towards her and tries to take her in his arms. A part of him aware that he needs to hug her like Tom Keen and not the calculated killer he really is. She goes willingly, and they stand there holding one another for a second or two before she leans back, and meets his eye. "What?" His hold on her tightens, fear lancing through him. _She knows, Tom. She knows._ But she doesn't, and he sighs when she says,

"I have to tell you something, and you're not gonna like it."


	2. Chapter 2

It's been fifteen minutes since she called Kaplan for the drop.

Fifteen minutes since she'd darted across the hall and into the bathroom.

Fifteen minutes of tension and fear and arguing.

Two minutes over the amount of time Red said Kaplan would take to get back to her.

_A thirteen minute grace period_

Liz glances at her phone again as if the minute has ticked by faster than it should have. A handful of tiny details were buzzing around her in head. The blood on the wall. The worry that Red would just amble down the stairs any moment, gun in hand, dandy and chipper and bleeding. How long she'd have to leave Tom and Red alone to retrieve the medical supplies she requested. Whether Tom would listen to her if she told him he wasn't allowed in that room. The inevitable reveal of an injured person in their home when she had to clean up the damn blood on the-

"Liz, are you even listening to me?" She can practically see all the times they've been threatened flash before his eyes. Zamani, Tom's recovery, nights she came home bruised and bloodied, Garrick answering her phone… "I mean, there's some person in our baby's room." She flinches a little at the mention of the baby, and their eyes meet; washed in exasperation, defeat, and regret.

"Tom-" She tries to take a step towards him, but he folds his arms, and she stops.

"Liz, this can't be safe." She knows he's freaking out, and while she would love nothing more than to reassure him, her mind is upstairs where Red sits bleeding in her almost-child's closet and she just can't muster the energy to lie to him about security when she doesn't know anything about why one of the most notorious men in the world has chosen to come to her in the state that he's in. Last time he was injured, he didn't even want to see me. "Do you even know how long this person is going to be here?"

"Not long. Just until a transfer can-"

"And I'm not allowed to know who it is?" If he interrupts her one more time, she's gonna lose it. This is exactly how their last argument had gone, and he'd done the one thing they swore never to do: he walked out on her. So far, it seemed that he was allowed to act as he pleased in this marriage, while she got criticized for everything just because her job demanded a little more than a school teacher's. _Is that unfair?_

"Tom, if you're not okay with this, I can find a place for you to stay." Liz watches her distressed husband pace back and forth across the kitchen like he did when he discovered the box under the floorboards. She didn't want this discussion to turn out like that one had.

When he turns away from her again, Liz wonders if she could actually keep Tom out of that room if he decided not to listen to her. How far are you willing to go? If things went south, she would have to choose between Tom and Red; her family and her job. A month ago, you wouldn't even be thinking about this. The answer would have been easy.

"It's not about me being okay with it, Liz." He turns and waves his arm towards the stairs. "I - I came home to talk about us, and you bring a government witness here!" She does her best to appear sympathetic as he looks at her again. He has this way of turning into a complete puppy when he's pleading, and it makes everything about him seem so much softer than what she faces in the real world.

It's one of the things that drew her to him. _A safety net of normal_. It's not just that there's blatant adoration in his eyes when he tries to convince her to do the safe thing, but it's the sense that he's asking her to choose them over everything else. But that trait of his hadn't worked since he asked her to move to Nebraska, and all she feels at the moment is a numb indifference to the way he's acting. "People could come after us, Liz."

"Tom," She tries to get closer to him again, and ends up grabbing his forearm to make him stop pacing. "I was ordered to do this, okay? This person is my responsibility." She forces her tone to be soft. It's easier to be calm when the other is excited. It's easier to be quieter when the other is loud. "I know it's a risk, but there's nothing we can do about it." He's turned to face her, and that gives her a little more confidence in his state of mind. She knows Tom. She knows her husband. She does. "I have to." It's at those words that his eyes seem to freeze over.

"That's exactly what I'm saying," He wrenches his arm out of her grasp, and she tries to follow, but her phone starts to vibrate on the table. "You have to do this, you have to do that, what if-" She grabs her phone as he goes on about how, "Classified" her life is, and how "he doesn't even know her anymore." But she's barely paying attention because the number on her phone is unavailable, and she knows that it's Kaplan.

"Tom, I have to take this." She doesn't wait for him to answer her as she walks towards the front door. She feels better putting herself where she can see her husband, and block him from the stairs if necessary. She glances back at Tom, watches him grip the back of a chair at the dining table, when she answers, "Keen."

"Where we met for the first time."

"What-" But her phone beeps twice in her ear, and she pulls away to stare at it. Kaplan didn't waste any time. She better still be there. Liz didn't just want to know the drop location. She wanted to know what to do and how. Liz's eyes trail from her phone to the window, where she stares at a point she can picture perfectly. She'd been standing in almost this exact spot when Aram had told her the address to the surveillance team across the street. No way… "Tom, I gotta get something from the car," She pockets her phone, and looks down to find her jacket and her keys where she dropped them when she got home.

"Everything alright?" He's appeared around the wall separating the dining room from the sitting room, and she tries to take comfort in the fact that he looks more concerned than angry.

"Yeah, just," She can't help glancing up the stairs as she reaches for the doorknob. "Just don't go up there, okay? I'll be right back." She doesn't give him time to answer her, as she races out of the house, down the steps, and bolts across the street.

* * *

The house is still dark, and she wonders how many more times she's going to have to break into this place. _Or…_ she goes to the back door where she let Mr. Kaplan in the first time, grabs the knob, and finds it open.

"Thank you," she mutters under her breath. She takes out her phone for light, and her gun as a precaution, before she starts up the stairs towards the room where she killed that guy. The wood floors are a hundred times louder than when she had tried to sneak through the place that day. As she reaches the landing, she flashes her phone light right before sweeping it left and lets out a sigh of relief when she pushes the door open to the room and finds a medium-sized duffle bag in the middle of the floor. Easing her way into the room, Liz watches the small screen of a burner phone light up on top of the bag. Putting her own phone in her back pocket, she flips open the burner.

_Everything you need is inside. Let him do what you can't. Work efficiently. Call this number as soon as it's safe._

Liz didn't know when safe would be, or why it wasn't safe now, and she didn't think keeping Red in her home for very long was a good idea. It was one of the least secure locations she could think of. Her eyes trail out the windows and towards the lit façade of her house. Through the curtain she can see Tom pacing through the foyer window. As she thinks about how big of a mess this could be, she slings the duffle over her shoulder and makes her way out of the room and down the stairs. Things could always be worse.

* * *

It's the blood on the wall at the top of the stairs that makes this little world he's protected for two years implode.

It's the blood on the wall that makes him stop breathing for half a second.

It's the blood on the wall that has him moving towards the kitchen.

He feels like his heart is going to jump out of his chest. After that mess with Jolene, he'd decided to go through with her initial mission because he thought he could pin her ill-conceived plans on her, kill Reddington, and get on with this life he cultivated. Cultivated. _As though he hadn't planned on living it forever._ As though he hadn't made deliberate choices to land himself in this position. Made the choice to want kids. Part of him did. _Which part. You lied. You lied. You lied every day from the minute you met her._ Someday, the gig would have been up. Berlin would take care of Reddington, and he and Liz could go on living this life. _Not anymore._ He loved her but he was trapped by what he wasn't.

And Reddington was making things worse.

He reaches into the fridge for a beer, eyes the bolts on the inside of the door, and debates how fast he could retrieve his extra stash of weapons. He'd hidden them in there when Liz had to leave early one morning after he was cleared by the Bureau. But that idea gets shelved when the front door opens again.

"Tom?" She sounds nervous and a bit of something else. _Suspicious_. She should be. It's hard not to be proud of your wife when really, you should subdue her and finish what you started. _Kill Reddington. He's not stupid_. Of course, the man would come and try to convince her to flee their home. Hideaway with him. It wasn't safe here. He had the evidence, obviously. A bullet through his shoulder courtesy of her fake husband. _I'm not the bad guy. Not to Liz._ Not this time.

"Everything alright?" He plasters a concerned expression on his face when he rounds the wall to the hallway alongside the staircase and takes in the bag she has over her shoulder and her setting her gun on the table just inside the door. A go-bag or something with supplies. _I can't let him leave. And I don't want Liz to believe him_. Bets had to be placed on how much she still trusted him, and if she trusted him more than his previous employer.

"I have to check on the witness," she wavers from her position near the door and the bottom of the stairs as he steps closer. Her features harden slightly, her stance widens. A chill lances through his body at the thought of her defensiveness. The spy in him knew the odds were against him. Christ, this could get bad.

"Look, about before," he extends a hand between them and makes a gesture as if he were wiping it all away; feeling as desperate as his voice sounds. "I'm sorry. I just- I want us to be safe." Her shoulders sag and she tilts her head a bit. She even gives him a small smile. _Bingo_.

"I know, me too. We'll discuss it more after I deliver this up stairs, okay?" He can only nod and watch her ascend the staircase, averting his eyes just as she nears the stain on the wall so she doesn't think he's noticed. He heads back into the kitchen, avoiding the alarm going off in his head about the suspicion in her voice and eyes when she first returned back inside. The patient husband of Elizabeth Keen said to wait everything out. The operative in him was itching for a gun and some control in the chaos of his mission. A gun is for insurance. Safety. Back-up.

 _Three minutes, Jacob_.  
Things are over. He knows this. He knows how stupid it is to cling to any hope of it being salvaged.

_Three minutes, Jacob._

It'll take less than that if he doesn't put the food back, if he leaves the inner lining hanging off after he's retrieved his weapons.  
His wife has been too watchful. Too invested. Too... _good at her job_ to ignore the warning signs forever.  
She's not stupid.  
_Three minutes, Jacob_.

* * *

The room no longer has the fresh, heady scent of new paint when she closes the door behind her. The sharp tang of blood and sweat makes her eyebrows furrow as she turns to look at Red inside the closet. Pale. Haggard. His expression is absent of that innate liveliness she's always been witness to, and it makes her stomach clench.

"I'm back." She kneels down in front of him, taking care to set the bag beside her, unconcerned for the amount of noise she's making. _Wake up. Wake the hell up._ His face pinches and he grunts, but his eyes remain closed as she unzips the duffle. Taking in the supplies inside, she grabs a few things to better sterilize the wound and the surrounding area, as well as gauze. Rummaging past the bags of saline, Liz pulls out the emergency surgical kit. _Here we go_. She places it between them and, after a moment's hesitation, reaches out and grasps his thigh; giving it a light a shake. "Reddington."

It takes a moment, and a bit more jostling than is comforting, but his eyes pry themselves open. Unfocused and drowsy, he stares at her as though dreaming. Liz says his name again, tilting her head in a gesture that is all too familiar.

"You with me?" She watches him blink slowly, an apparently gargantuan effort on his part as his eye lashes flutter stubbornly against his cheeks, fighting to keep his eyes open.

"Is Tom behaving?" She frowns at him for a moment and shrugs. "I heard you," He pauses, playing with his tongue as though schooling it to form the correct word. "Arguing."

"He's just nervous." She finds herself reluctant to talk about Tom. A feeling of embarrassment she can't place creeps into her stomach and the back of her throat. "The last time some stranger was in our home, Tom ended up on a ventilator." Her pointed and acerbic tone makes his eyebrows lift.

"I'm not going to apologize for sending Zamani after your husband, Lizzie." He shifts against the wall to sit up more, and she leans forward to grasp his good arm in order to help situate him. "You needed to know the truth."

She still wasn't sure what she felt in conclusion to learning that he'd sent that man into her home. Psychologically speaking, the certain numbness she experienced when thinking of that moment worried her. She'd always been good at suppressing trauma after it happened.

Healthy or not, she was doing so now. The rage that led to her ramming a pen into Red's neck was the build-up and fallout of the situation, but now that she'd found that box...her emotions were dulled when it came to facing the one responsible for causing her so much fear. No matter what she did, she struggled with the idea of Tom; of husband and possible impostor. He'd been cleared by the Bureau, and Red _still_ insisted that Tom wasn't who she thought he was.

"I may not be-" He leans towards her a bit, the sudden bout of determination startles her, and she lets him examine the contents in the bag. "-very coherent in the next few minutes." It's a warning that dashes anxiety into her stomach like fire ants. _Did you know your security team rotates every four hours?_ If he passed out on her, she would have to do this alone. While the Bureau's training included a required first aid course, she wasn't a surgeon. She wasn't taught to do what Red had done for Ressler in that box.

"I don't think I can do this by myself, Red." He looks up at her with a gentle smile, and grasps her forearm in comforting gesture.

"Not to worry," He reaches for the bag, and she moves it closer so he doesn't strain himself. He plucks two vials and two different syringes, and hands them to her before leaning back against the wall again. "We'll use that larger syringe for the iodine, smaller one for the local." She looks down at the two and sets to work filling both syringes with their respective liquids. After she expels the little bit of air in the anesthetic's syringe, she peers at him.

"We?" For the first time since she's arrived home, she feels an amused smile on her face.

"I may not be doing much of the work, but instruction counts for something."

By the time she's finished with the front, Red is even paler. Sweat drenches his face and neck, and his breathing is no better than before. She piles the used syringes and needles onto one of her discarded gloves, careful to set them off to set them off to the side in case she has to move him. There's no way he'll be conscious while she cleans and stitches up the exit wound, and she doesn't know how best to maneuver him so that she can get to it. They'd made quick work of the front, which now sported a small patch of gauze Red was barely keeping in place with his other hand while she tapes it in place. He's still modestly covered up, a miraculous feat after some grumbled threats about not cutting his shirt away, so she'd had to work at an angle.

"You should send Tom out for a late night dinner run, and then call for Dembe to come get us." It's quiet and regretful, but it's enough to set her on edge again. She watches a shiver race through him, and he closes his eyes when his body tenses. _Come get us._ Us. We. She uses one of the clean bandages to dab at his face, and she checks his pulse, his temperature. Distressed at her findings, Liz turns to the burner phone in the bag, and places it in his good hand.

"I'll send him to Wing-Yee's, tell Dembe to be at the door in ten minutes." Red looks at her beyond his pain and his body's weakened state with a resounding reluctance to let her leave the room.

"And if Tom refuses?" The weirdest thrill of nerves makes her stomach drop; a sense of doubt gripping her heart. There was no reason for him to refuse to go get food. It wasn't like he wanted to cook, and Lord knows he didn't want _her_ cooking. She wipes every last trail of blood from her hands with an antiseptic wipe, and shakes her head. _This is stupid._ It was Tom they were talking about.

"Why would he?" Red shifts, though the movement does him no good, and he blinks at her with a slight wince crinkling the corners of his eyes. They stare at each other, and Liz finds it in her not to back down, not to say anything else, just to let the question hang there. Red shakes his head slightly, yielding to her questioning stare, and she takes it as a small victory. "Ten minutes, okay?" She waits for him to nod, and then she's at the door, giving him and the room one last glance before she shuts him away again.

* * *

Hudson was locked in the downstairs bathroom.

The fridge was an absolute mess.

There were guns in the bag at his feet.

One in his hand on the table.

Another tucked into the back of his pants.

Extra clips in his pockets.

His wife was up in what was supposed to be their baby's room, tending to a man that probably wanted to blow his brains out.

And Tom was sitting at the head of their dining room table, contemplating whether or not retrieving the key he'd placed under their first lamp was worth it, or if he could use it to his advantage.

Using it meant sticking around, seeing things through, trying to salvage the sham marriage that turned, somewhere along the line, into something _real._ Using it meant incurring more wrath from Reddington, seeing as the information it kept locked away held damning evidence to the criminal's assistance in Sam's death. It's something that Liz would never forgive him for, and it seemed like such a sweet contingency to leave behind should things not go as he wanted. Liz had been up there for over twenty minutes when he heard the door open and slip closed again. _Here we go._ Drawing in a deep breath, adrenaline rushing through him, listening for the sound of her descending the staircase, he collects himself.

"Hey Tom?" Counting the steps she's taken, _five_ , how many more she has until she reaches the bottom, _seven_ , how many excuses he can come up with to bail on this plan of his, _zero._ "Babe, I'm _starving._ Do you think you could run out for Chinese? I know Wing-Yee's is probably still-" He's watching her as she appears around the corner from the sitting room. Her face had been smiling that guilty smile, that cute hopefulness she usually gets when she _really_ wants something but is afraid he'll say no. She freezes, and it takes half a second for her to tense, to make sense of what she's seeing, of the gun in his hand, and something cold reaches through his limbs and solidifies what it is he has to do. When he points his gun at her, finger off the trigger, but his intent obvious. _Stay put, babe._ No need for her to go grabbing her gun.

"We need to talk."

**Author's Note:**

> Second chapter should be up shortly.


End file.
